Fiction & Drama
New Northbank fiction in 2024
04/01/2024
Northbank Speakers
Northbank Creators
A Londoner of Grenadian heritage, Pam graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in 1984 with a degree in Fashion, and spent the next two decades working in the industry as a journalist, Fashion Editor (at She, PS, Shape and Now magazines) and freelance stylist.
Whilst she’s currently a teacher at a special needs school, writing continues to be a constant in Pam’s life. She joined the Afrikan Heritage Writers group in 2014 and contributed poetry and prose pieces (which she performs) to the collective’s anthology 100 Years Unheard – WW1 and the Afrikan Diasporan Woman (2018).
Pam’s highly commended short story Soul Talking was published in the City of Stories (2017) compilation from Spread the Word; and she is an alumnus of the writer development agency’s London Writers Award (2019). She won the BlackInk New Writing Prize 2022 for her short story Hibiscus.
Pam’s work has the black experience at its heart with a focus on the importance of family and the need to belong – although always in unique ways.
Other than writing, the things that bring Pam the greatest joy are spending time with her son and granddaughter; holidaying with her husband, family and friends; and taking snaps that have turned her home into a gallery of memories.
Media & Coverage
Books
A Trace of Sun
Pam Williams
Longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
A Trace of Sun is an ambitious, immersive novel about identity, family and estrangement – and the very real, lifelong consequences of separation on mental health.
Raef is left behind in Grenada when his mother, Cilla, follows her husband to England in search of a better life. When they are finally reunited seven years later, they are strangers – and the emotional impact of the separation leads to events that rip their family apart. As they try to move forward with their lives, his mother’s secret will make Raef question all he’s ever known of who he is.
A Trace of Sun is, in part, inspired by the author’s own family experiences.
‘An unflinching look at one family’s experience of immigration, exploring mental health, identity and family’
— Louise Hare, author of Miss Aldridge Regrets
‘A beautiful and heartbreaking story told over the passage of time, exploring what it means to be a woman and mother and what the people in your life expect, want and need from you.’
— Laura Dockrill, author and illustrator, judge of 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction
‘This is a finely balanced book – there are moments of such inspiring hope amidst the heartbreak and powerful plot.’
— Glamour magazine
